????企業能否變成更好的創新者？目前，成熟經濟體的經濟增長陷入停滯，發展中國家的經濟增長放緩，很多專家對國內外創新的數量和質量感到憂心忡忡。值此之際，上述問題已經變成了一個價值數百萬美元的問題。

????過去八年里，我們的博斯管理咨詢公司（Booz & Company）每年都對創新投入力度最大的1,000家上市公司進行研發支出調查。每年我們都發現，企業研發支出的多少與總體業績表現無關。例如，蘋果（Apple）在我們的調查中總是成為最具創新力的公司，但其研發支出只占到營收的2.2%，大大低于整個計算機和電子行業的6.5%。

????這1,000家公司的研發支出在2011年總共達到了6,030億美元，同比增加了9.6%。但其中很多錢并沒有用在刀刃上。作為今年調查的一部分，我們調查、采訪了企業高管他們在創新早期階段的活動情況。在這個階段，企業產生、然后審查創意。這些創意最終將變成新的產品和服務。但調查結果并不令人滿意。

????接受我們調查的企業高管中，46%的人承認，他們構思新創意并將之投入產品研發階段的努力沒有取得很好的效果。只有四分之一的人說，他們的公司既善于構思創意，同時也善于研發。由于這些公司采取的新產品研發和上市策略不同，調查結果也存在很大差別。

????如果企業與客戶直接交流，了解他們的需求，然后率先向市場推出新產品，這種早期創新的努力往往更有效。

????如果企業依靠對已選定市場的深刻了解來開展漸進性創新，但由此誕生的產品并不是市場先入者，他們在構思和審查新創意方面的效果就會更差。看重技術解決方案、需要顛覆性技術的公司也是如此。

????但這些區別并不重要。真正重要的是企業在執行已選定策略方面的表現如何（前提是的確存在創新策略，事實是，近20%的企業都沒有）。企業必須首先把創新和公司整體戰略結合起來，然后確保自己有能力執行這個策略，并保證公司的文化和結構與之相適應。

????舉個例子，惠普（Hewlett-Packard）的成功長期以來都是由其技術創新推動。如果惠普決定從大規模的PC消費者需求調查中尋找創新線索，它就不會那么成功。“消費者其實并不知道什么是有可能的，”惠普企業戰略和聯盟高級副總裁吉里希?奈爾說。“他們能說出自己的需求，但他們不知道技術能做到什么程度，尤其是因為技術的能力變化很快。必須把它創造出來……。”

????Can companies learn to become better innovators? At a time when economic growth is stagnating in mature economies and slowing in developing ones, and experts far and wide are fretting over the degree and quality of innovation here and abroad, this has turned into a (multi) million-dollar question.

????For the past eight years, our firm, Booz & Company, has conducted an annual study on R&D spending among the 1,000 public companies that spend the most on innovation. Every year, we affirm that there is no correlation between how much a company spends on R&D and its overall financial performance. Apple (AAPL), for instance, has consistently been named the most innovative company in our study, yet it spends just 2.2% of its revenue on R&D, well below the 6.5% of revenue spent by the computing and electronics industry as a whole.

????Overall spending among all 1,000 companies increased by 9.6% in 2011 compared to the previous year, to $603 billion. But a great deal of that money is not being spent wisely. As part of this year's study, we surveyed and interviewed executives about their activities during the early stages of innovation, when companies generate and then vet the ideas that will eventually become new products and services. The results were not encouraging.

????Forty-six percent of the executives we surveyed admitted that their efforts to generate good new ideas and move them into product development stage were only marginally effective, and just a quarter of them said their companies were good at both idea generation and development. These results vary considerably based on the strategy that these companies follow in developing new products and taking them to market.

????Companies that directly engage customers in hopes of understanding their needs and wants, and then try to be first to market with their new products, tend to be more effective in their early-stage innovation efforts.

????Companies that depend on a deep understanding of their chosen markets and prefer to innovate through incremental improvement, even if they aren't first to market with the resulting products, are somewhat less effective at generating and vetting new ideas. Also less effective are companies that emphasize technology solutions and need a robust pipeline of game-changing technology.

????But even these distinctions don't matter as much as how well a company can execute on its chosen strategy (assuming that it actually has a strategy for innovation; nearly 20% of companies don't). A company must first strive to get its innovation and overall business strategies on the same page. Then it must make sure it has the agility to carry out this strategy, and make sure its culture and organization are on board.

????Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), for example, whose success has long been driven by its technological wizardry, would likely be much less successful if it decided to take its innovation cues primarily from extensive market research into what PC consumers want. "Consumers don't really know what is possible," says Girish Nair, HP's senior vice president of corporate strategy and alliances. "They can describe what they want, but they don't know what the technology can do, especially because what the technology can do changes rapidly. You have to create it…."